


And if you howl, I'll give you the moon

by Pax_2735



Series: Prompts [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Post-Canon, Warging
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:55:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23248084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pax_2735/pseuds/Pax_2735
Summary: "She sits down – on her hind quarters – and takes a steady look at her surroundings, trying to make sense of it. She can see her massive paws crunching the snow in front of her, covered in coarse white fur, and feel the rustling wind caressing one long ear.Ghost."Written for the prompt: Post series - Sansa misses Jon. When she discovers she can warg into Ghost, she uses this ability to see him beyond the Wall.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Series: Prompts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786966
Comments: 52
Kudos: 114





	1. Prologue - Loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I own nothing but the mistakes.
> 
> This was originally written for the Jonsa Festival over on Tumblr. The prompts were anonymous so I have no idea who came up with this... but if it was you please let me know, I'd love to gift this fic to you.

“Well then, my Lords, I believe that settles the matter.” Sansa rises to her feet as soon as the words are out of her mouth and the assembled lords are quick to follow in the wake of their queen. “It’s late and we are all tired. I believe all further matters can wait until tomorrow.” She watches as they bow their heads and she gives a quick nod and a polite smile in their direction before she turns and leaves the room.

She walks through the dimly lit hallways towards her chambers, her steps quick yet unhurried. The few servants still up and about at this late hour curtsey as they come across their queen, and she takes the time to smile and exchange a few gentle words with each of them, asking about the work being carried out, giving instructions and counsel or merely enquiring about their loved ones.

A lifetime ago, she had told Cersei that she would make her people love her, and that is exactly what she strives to do, every day since she has become queen.

As she finally enters her chambers and closes the door, she breathes a small sigh of relief though. She has been up since before dawn, and her day has been a whirlwind of places to go and things to do, and she feels drained.

She is quick to dismiss her sleepy looking chamber maids, choosing to undress herself in solitude. She easily recognizes the pull of exhaustion at the brink of her mind and knows that, soon, the ghosts of all those she loved will be here, keeping her company and pulling her under with the weight of all that she’s lost.

She recognizes and even cherishes the ones who have died, her memories keeping them alive in her mind, making them an integral part of her life still. Her mother and father, Robb and Rickon, Theon and Lady. She wishes to keep them as close as possible and treasures these small moments when she can remember them in peace, no matter how much these memories clench her heart and make it bleed out with the strength of their absence.

It’s the ones that are still living that have the power to hurt her the most.

Bran, who is as far away from her as he’s ever been, ever since they first parted so long ago, both physically and in the way he’s just not her little brother anymore. A king now, and a strange creature that bears little resemblance to the sweet boy who wanted to become a knight, but she fears her brother exists no more.

Brienne, who now stands on the other side of the continent, the brave and bold she-warrior whose path had taken her to positions previously unthinkable in any of the seven kingdoms. She had left by her own design and with Sansa’s blessing and she can hardly begrudge her for her choice. She simply misses her friend.

Arya, the sister who was finally becoming one, who has left for only the gods know where, whom she cannot contact, cannot speak to no matter how much she wishes she could.

And Jon…

Jon, who has willingly left her and their home behind.

She had sent dozen of ravens to Castle Black, entreating him to come back. Assuring him it was safe, that he could return even if it was just for a visit. Telling him about the repairs being done to Winterfell, how they were coping with winter, all the ideas she had to make life for their people better, how much she missed him.

When her letters had gone unanswered she had sent a party to what remained of the Wall, under the guise of assessing the needs of the Night’s Watch, so they could report back and have them answered. Their return, a few moons later, had told her what she already feared. Jon had gone north of the Wall and hadn’t been seen since.

She feels the familiar prickling of tears and she closes her eyes, allowing them to fall freely. Here in her chambers, in the dead of night, is the only place and the only time when she allows herself this brief moment of weakness, this release from the constant demands of duty, where she can just be Sansa and not the queen in the north.

Where she can be the girl who’s gained everything she had ever desired and lost everything that ever mattered.


	2. The first time - Surprise

By the time she returns to her chambers the following night, Sansa is seething with anger.

It’s already well into the night, the full moon illuminating her chambers to the point where she doesn’t need to concern herself with candles, its soft glow bathing the room in silver light and lingering shadows. Very fitting with her current mood.

She makes her way resolutely towards the window, her hands gripping the sill tightly as she rests her forehead against the cool glass and closes her eyes. Conversation with the lords that evening had turned to a sour topic – this constant, dire need to have an heir.

She doesn’t begrudge them for it – she cannot – for she understands well enough their concerns. They are her own as well. Still, she hates the idea of it, and right now, in her current state, she simply hates them.

She opens her eyes and lets her gaze wander across the open fields surrounding the keep. The moonlight creates the illusion of a silver sea, patches of ice glinting as tiny diamonds leading the way towards the snow covered forests. Miles away, where she cannot see it, stands the wall and beyond it…

Her mind is assaulted with images of endless hours on horseback, trekking across the snowy grounds as she and Jon tried to gather an army to take back their home from those who had dared to steal it. Huddling in tents, entreating their bannermen, the constant bickering between them, eyes ablaze and tongues sharp, the threats and the horrors they had faced, those are all memories of their time together she recalls now with the fondness of someone who has survived them.

She knows it’s insane but part of her misses it. Mostly, she misses him.

She runs a hand idly through her hair as something else lingers there. There’s a tugging at the back recesses of her mind, something wild and free that calls out to her, and she feels unsettled as her mind slowly tries to make sense of what it is. She hasn’t felt this strange pull in a long time, ever since Lady was taken from her by the cruel actions of a boy pretending to be a prince.

She hadn’t known much about warging back then, only what she had learned from the stories Old Nan would tell them, fanciful tales about strange men who could take possession of an animal’s mind and make them do their bidding. And those were hardly the stories she loved with all her heart. The girl Sansa had been far preferred tales about gallant princes and the maidens they fell in love with over stories about tasteless gifts of old magic that wasn’t real.

It wasn’t until Bran had returned to Winterfell so different from the little brother she had once known, that Sansa had begun to recognize those few precious moments when she had felt so incredibly close to Lady – had felt as though she _was_ Lady, like they were one and the same – for what they truly were. Sometimes she wanders at it, at what could have been if Lady had stayed by her side like she was meant to be, if their bond had been allowed to develop as it was meant to.

She’s still dwelling over the strangeness of the pull, still very much present in the back of her mind, as she pushes away from the window and cautiously makes her way to her bed before flopping unceremoniously down on top of her furs and letting her eyes flutter close. She doesn’t know where this is coming from, or even if it isn’t simply a product of her exhausted mind, but right now she wants it.

She keeps her eyes closed and her breaths even as she tries to chase down the feeling. It’s a fruitless pursuit though, the pull growing weaker and weaker the longer she tries to bring it to the front of her mind. When moments pass by and nothing happens, Sansa sighs in annoyance. Disappointment washes over her at what she feels is a lost opportunity, although at what she cannot say, and she shakes her head to try to clear her thoughts before she puts a stop to this. Perhaps a good night’s sleep is what she needs to forget about these foolish ideas.

When she opens her eyes again, intent on readying herself for bed, she has to blink furiously to try and make sense of what she sees. She has no idea where she is but this… this is certainly a far cry from the bedchamber where she was but for a moment ago. The open space around her is completely unfamiliar and she’s certain she has never been here before, even though there is very little in sight to serve as a proper landmark.

She sits down – on her hind quarters – and takes a steady look at her surroundings, trying to make sense of it. She can see her massive paws crunching the snow in front of her, covered in coarse white fur, and feel the rustling wind caressing one long ear.

Ghost.

She feels a sense of awe and profound happiness as she realizes she’s warged into the massive direwolf. They had bonded during the last couple of years, and certainly even more so when Jon had gone to Dragonstone, but this is entirely different. It’s a testament to how deep their connection truly goes and she feels her heart flutter at the knowledge.

Casting her now very sharp eyes around, she can see plummets of smoke rising in the heavily over casted sky from what looks to be a village of sorts, far in the distance, and further beyond, the faint glinting of water shinning under the bright full moon.

She doesn’t know how safe this place will be – or if it will be safe at all – but she’s curious to see it. And if Ghost is here then Jon can’t be too far either. Carefully standing up, she tries to get accustomed to this new body of hers before she starts making her way towards the village.

Her ears pick up their voices long before she can see them, as she perches on top of the hill surrounding the dwelling. It’s a mix of harsh sounding languages – some of which she vaguely recognizes, others completely foreign – and she shakes her head resolutely to try and clear her head somewhat. Ghost’s senses are much sharper than her own, it’s going to take some getting used to this.

She makes her way cautiously into the space, her senses taking careful notice of everything around her. If Ghost is this close to the settlement then there’s a good chance Jon is here as well and these people should be well acquainted with the direwolf but she chooses to remain careful. It has served her well this far.

There are easily more than a dozen people coming and going, big burly men with strange hair and swords and battle axes barely concealed beneath piles of furs; women who could easily be mistaken for men, with breeches and leggings and weapons who remind her strikingly of Arya; a group of children scampering about between the adults as they chase after one another with happy laughter. Sansa rears back at the sight, not wanting to scare them, but they pay her no mind as they scatter around her like a flock of birds only to continue their merry chase. She watches as they turn a corner and scamper out of sight and is reminded of similar pursuits across the halls of Winterfell, when she and her brothers were young and alive.

She soon realizes that she’s not a strange sight. Most of the people she comes across pay her little mind or even greet her friendly, some coming as far as giving her a swift rub to the head as they move along their way.

Her thoughts take a turn once she’s satisfied with the careless way her presence is noticed and she starts to truly take in her surroundings. Her heightened senses threaten to overwhelm her once more as everything seems to be so much brighter, so much louder, so much _more_.

She can hear the sounds of dozens of different voices, with their pitches and their accents, all the different languages ringing out across the muddy streets. She recognizes the sound of a whetstone being put to use over a rusty blade, the crackling of logs used in cooking fires and, further in the distance, the ever constant murmur of waves crashing against a pebbled shore.

The smells assault her senses as well, not in the way one would notice the scent of dozens of unwashed bodies crammed together in a narrow space or the clean scent of earth after a heavy rainfall – those she was used to, in any case – but more in the particularities of each of it, in a way she has never been able to notice before.

She can discern the strong scent of venison as its being cooked, as well as rabbit and hare and something else she doesn’t quite recognize. There’s that awful smell from that drink Tormund likes so much as well as the more familiar scent of ale. She can smell apples rotting away at the bottom of a barrel somewhere to her right and the salt that wafts away with the breeze coming in from the water.

It’s undeniably overwhelming and for a moment Sansa stands still, trying to gather her bearings.

She’s startled when she feels someone give her a playful slap to her bottom and she turns around sharply. The man is tall and impressively built, with a mane of impossibly tangled brown hair and a thick beard that covers his face almost completely. If she was herself there’d be no telling him off for daring to touch her so, and she opens her mouth on instinct. Ghost doesn’t make a sound, as usual, but there’s a slight bearing of teeth that wipes the grin off his face and sends him scurrying away before she can bring herself to remember who she is now.

Something else catches her attention then. The scent is earthy and mostly faded, just a slight hint of pine and wood and smoke, but it’s distinctive enough to hold her attention and she cocks her head in that direction, trying to pinpoint its source. The remnants of a booming laugh follow soon after and she immediately starts in that direction.

Woman or wolf, she knows that laugh.

She moves swiftly between the throngs of people as she tries to follow the sound to its source, her white paws now covered in brown muddy socks as she darts between crates and sacks stacked against the timber dwellings.

The salty scented breeze grows heavier as she comes closer to the water. The cabins are slightly sparser here, windowless shacks more likely used for storage than living, stained permanently with the heavy scent of rotted fish.

The source of the laugh is clearly visible now, his towering figure walking steadily towards her. Tormund cocks a brow when he sees her – sees Ghost – before nodding his head towards the water’s edge with a scowl. “Reckon he needs you boy.”

Sansa tries to swallow the lump that forms in her throat but, in Ghost’s body, it comes off as a sort of gurgling rasp that has Tormund laughing. She’s not really paying attention to him though, only to the source of that earthy pine scent that she has long come to associate with home.

Jon is standing by the edge of the water, his gaze lost over the vast dark emptiness, and Sansa’s heart picks up in her chest as she takes him in after so many moons since she last saw him. His hair is slightly shorter, his unbound curls swaying in the breeze, making him look so much younger, almost like the boy she remembers parting ways with on the Kingsroad, a lifetime ago, but there’s a heavy set to his shoulders and jaw that betrays that notion. Whatever it was the two men had been discussing, it has obviously left Jon in a sour mood.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, Tormund’s voice sounds again in the cold evening air. “You best go to him, he needs a bit of loving.” He gives her an affectionate scratch behind the ear and then he’s leaving and Jon… Jon turns around to see what Tormund is yapping about, his brows scrunching in confusion as he sees her.

“Ghost? I thought you were out hunting.”

He doesn’t get any more words out as Sansa bounces into him, leaping up to land her massive paws on his shoulders. He stumbles back under her weight, his hand coming across her torso to hold her, and she can feel his laughter rumbling in his chest as she does her best to hug him to her, her snout bumping affectionately against his neck, her tongue licking across his face until he holds her head between his hands to stop her.

“Alright, alright,” he laughs, “I missed you too boy.”

_Gods, you have no idea how much I missed you._

He’s smiling at her, his eyes crinkling around the corners as his hands sweep lovingly across her fur. He leans forward, his nose bumping into hers, and she licks him again, his eyes closing as his smile widens at the caress.

She feels him nuzzle into her again before his hands move to her paws to drop her down. “Alright now, off of me, you big oaf.” Despite his words, she can clearly hear the affection in his tone. “You nearly knocked me on my ass.”

“Someone ought to.” Tormund’s voice floats to them, but Jon merely shakes his head before he bends closer to whisper in her ear. “He’s right, but he doesn’t need to know that.”

“Damn right I am.”

Jon straightens back up and narrows his eyes into the darkness, trying to make up his form. It’s strange, Sansa thinks, when she can clearly see Tormund’s ginger hair shinning like a beacon between the fishing nets hanging against one of the shacks.

“I thought you were leaving.” Jon is still narrowing his eyes trying to see into the dark so Sansa nudges his leg gently in the right direction. She’s rewarded as his hand comes atop her head, rubbing her fur.

“I am. So should you little crow. All those stupid questions will still be here in the morning.” Jon scowls but Tormund is completely oblivious as he’s already leaving his carefully chosen spot to head back to the village.

“Prick,” she hears Jon mutter and her body shakes weirdly as she tries to laugh. He gives her head another rub, coupled with a sheepish smile for good measure, before he starts to make his way back into the settlement.

Sansa keeps close to him as they cross the narrow pathways, Jon’s head nodding to a few of the people they come across, as they quietly make their way through the camp towards a small cabin right at its edge.

It’s a crude looking thing, made out of uneven pieces of wood and rock and yet, there’s something about it that is unmistakably Jon. It’s nestled on top of a small elevation, its location providing an unobstructed view of the snowy plains around the dwelling, all the way to the edge of the forest. It’s also placed as far away from the others as it can possibly be and still be considered part of the settlement.

_Part of it but as far removed from the center as possible._

It’s a visual testament of what Jon’s life had been like throughout his years in Winterfell and beyond and – not for the first time – Sansa feels her chest ache at the part she played in making it so.

Jon uses his shoulder to push the door open and disappears inside and Sansa is quick to follow as her interest pikes. She had always been curious as a girl, despite her Septa’s attempts at snuffing it out of her for not being ‘ladylike behavior’. But now, in her new wolf form, Sansa has no such qualms as she pads inside with interest.

She busies herself taking stock of the place – the cabin is a tiny as it looked from the outside, despite being surprisingly well kept and clean. Well, not surprisingly, she supposes, as Jon certainly didn’t have any maids during his time with the Night’s Watch but still.

She sniffs around the place as Jon moves to stoke the dying embers still left inside the circular hearth that takes up the center of the room. It’s easy enough to discover what passes as a pantry with its measly provisions – a dried piece of meat so completely unappetizable she doubts the most skilled of cooks could ever render it eatable again; a small sack of grain she is willing to bet Jon has no idea what to do with (not that she has either, but that’s beside the point); a bunch of dried apples (and here she truly wonders where do they get all these apples from, when it’s still the middle of winter).

She continues her inspection onto a pile of clothes thrown haphazardly in a corner but quickly rears back as the smell hits her nostrils – there’s pine and wood and everything that’s so distinctively Jon but the stench of sweat and too many days makes her shake her head furiously as she scratches at her snout with her paw. She hears Jon’s laughter from behind.

“You should know better than to go around sniffing my dirty clothes.”

 _Yes, I know that now,_ she muses as she turns back towards him. He has his back to her as he carefully retrieves Longclaw from his belt and props it against the wall before he turns to look at her with a mocking smile.

“I know how bad they smell, I was the one wearing them for a fortnight.”

Sansa scrunches her nose at that and watches as her snout wrinkles before she sneezes. Jon shakes his head at her. “You weren’t complaining when you were out ranging with me.”

 _Oh. That makes sense._ She risks another wary look at the offending pile of clothes. _Still…_

Jon lets out a quiet chuckle. “Aye, I suppose it wasn’t as bad when we were outdoors.” He grins. “Tomorrow alright? I promise I’ll wash them. Wouldn’t want to offend your delicate nose.”

He turns back towards the furs that make up his bed, seemingly done with the conversation, and begins to struggle to rid himself of his heavy furs. The thing looks tattered and well worn, the strappy pieces of leather that keep everything together looking soft and pliant, and Sansa realizes suddenly that Jon is still wearing the cloak she made for him all those moons ago, when they first set out to regain their home.

She’s so distracted by those memories she fails to realize Jon is still moving, pulling fur and then cloth away. It’s only when she sees him pull his tunic over his head, the broad expanse of his back glistening in the fire light, that Sansa realizes what he’s doing and she jerks back to her senses.

And then she freezes.

His skin is smooth, with only a handful of visible scars under the soft light, pulling taut across his muscles as he continues to move. His shoulders seem far more relaxed now and she lets her eyes wander down his powerful arms and across his lower back before she realizes what she’s doing.

She shakes her whole body, trying to get rid of this new, unbound energy. Jon turns back to her, his gaze questioning, and Sansa sits downs abruptly, tensing her muscles in a desperate attempt to stop the nervous quivering of her wolf body. It works, somewhat, although she has no idea how to stop her tail from waggling against the dirt floor, a small cloud of dust coloring the air behind her.

Jon givers her another soft smile as he begins to put his clothes away. She knows her mouth is parted, she can feel her tongue lolling to the side, but she can’t really help it when right now she feels as though she can’t properly breathe.

It’s a good thing Jon doesn’t seem to find anything amiss as she continues to take her fill of him – the scars of the wounds that killed him are clearly visible now that he has turned towards her but beyond that, well… he’s all glistening skin and hard muscle and a light scattering of dark hair that disappears beneath his breeches.

She’s not a maid, far from it, and this is hardly the first time she has seen a half-naked man, so Sansa blames it on the wolf as she licks her snout clean before she forcefully snaps her mouth shut.

Jon is mercifully oblivious to it as he continues getting ready to sleep but Sansa is certainly not as his hands make their way to the laces on his breeches.

_Oh. Oh. OH._

He makes quick work of them as he turns back towards his sleeping furs, and then he’s pushing the breeches down his hips and Sansa panics, springing to her feet in a hurry. Jon turns his head to look at her, a confused look in his eyes, but once his body begins to turn as well, she snaps her eyes closed tightly.

The sound of his voice calling her name – Ghost’s name – begins to vanish, the sound coming from further and further away and it only takes her a few moments to realize something is vastly different. She can no longer discern voices speaking from nearby cabins nor smell the meat cooking in their hearths.

Instead, everything feels quiet and calm and bland.

Sansa opens her eyes slowly as she realizes she’s back in her own bed, back in Winterfell, back in her own skin. She feels exhausted, a weary ache deep in her bones as her mind struggles to get reacquainted to this body. She closes her eyes again and lets herself be pulled to sleep, the heavy darkness enveloping her as visions of fire and cabins and smooth skin still dance behind her eyelids.


	3. The second time - Anger

She’s still tired when she opens her eyes the next day, and there’s a rebellious streak in her that wishes she could remain in bed all day, lingering among her warm furs, but the sunlight streaming through her window and painting her chambers in a play of shadows are proof enough she has already wasted several hours of the day and she reluctantly rises.

She carries with her duties as faithfully as ever, long, tedious meetings with high lords and ladies alike, prominent discussions about trade agreements with the south and the state of their stored provisions, as winter is still harsh and relentlessly holding the land. There are always matters that demand her attention, endless disputes that need soothing.

She supposes she cannot truly be blamed if her attention wanes from time to time, her mind drowning out the constant chatter to fly across frozen plains and snowed forests, beyond the wall and into a wildling camp.

And when night comes, and she stands in the exact same spot as she stood the night before, closing her eyes and imagining rough hands stroking coarse white fur, she tries not to be too disappointed when nothing happens.

As days go by though, Sansa begins to grow increasingly frustrated. There is an important trade agreement with Dorne that doesn’t seem to be advancing, with unreasonable demands from both sides growing more unreasonable with each passing hour, and she’s starting to feel more and more like Old Nan trying to appease bickering children than she does a queen. Her patience is wearing thin and she wishes she could just slam the door in their faces like a petulant child and leave them to it.

She longs for some peace and quiet. She longs for some freedom from duty and responsibility.

Her short spam spent inside Ghost’s mind is long gone, the memory of it feeling more like a fading dream with each passing day, one she struggles to remember fully but can feel slipping away like the snowflakes she used to try and catch with her hands as a little girl.

She has tried, more times than she cares to admit, to slip back into the direwolf’s mind. But she doesn’t know how to, though, and so far all her attempts have come to naught. It’s not like she can ask the maester for help with this – the look of disbelief and shock she’s certain would grace the man’s solemn features is enough to make her smile ruefully. Maybe she will ask him, she thinks wickedly, just for the sake of it.

Of course, the more obvious choice is Bran – her little brother knows all there is to know about warging, she has seen him do it on more than one occasion – but she’s loathe to reach out to him on this, to put words on a quill and send out ravens on such a topic, on what she feels is essentially spying on Jon.

The door of the meeting room where she still sits with the southern emissaries sweeps open suddenly and startles her out of her thoughts before a young boy sweeps inside the hall. His hair is disheveled, brown locks sticking to his forehead as if he had just run all the way here, a look of excitement shinning in his dark eyes.

“Apologies,” he pants out, looking sheepishly at the lords before his eyes settle on her and he walks across the room with determined steps, “Your Grace, there’s been a raven, from King’s Landing. It has the royal seal.” He remembers himself then, and drops into a clumsy bow under the reproachful eyes of the lords.

She smiles at the boy as she takes the rolled up parchment with steady hands. She fails to see what could be so exciting about a raven from her brother, even though she wonders at it as well. But it does offer the perfect opportunity to shirk this dull meeting, so she doesn’t hesitate to rise from her chair. There’s a rushed scraping of seats as the assembled lords scramble to their feet but she pays them little notice.

Part of her wishes she could just walk out without a word – and yes, slam the door forcefully on her way out – but years of instilled courtesies still ring in her head. They are her armor, a distant voice whispers, and she feels her insides twist. “If you will forgive me, I feel I must see to this at once.” She doesn’t wait for them to answer, and only faintly hears their mumbled agreements.

She makes her way to the godswood before dismissing the guards that have hurried behind her after her hasty departure. The ground is thick with snow, her boots crunching against the icy pathways. The pond is frozen solid, covered with a fresh layer of ice glinting in the rapidly fading sun, its edges marked by fallen red leaves from the massive weirwood. Her gloved fingers caress the wood slowly around the carved face, its red eyes seemingly boring into her.

Bran’s quill is slightly rumpled by her grasping fingers and she stares at the wax seal depicting a raven with open wings. She makes quick work of breaking it and reads the message in slightly blurred ink.

_Focus your attention. Be a wolf. With love, the three-eyed raven._

“What?” Her voice comes out far louder and harsher than intended and a crow startles in the tree, its indignant squawks breaking the stillness as he flies across the sky in search of quieter perching. _What is that supposed to mean?_ She tilts her head upward and closes her eyes, taking deep, measured breaths and allowing her frustration to dwindle away slowly. Bran’s messages may be cryptic, she smirks, but he wouldn’t have bothered with it unless it meant something.

Her mind flies back to Jon and Ghost and the precious night she has spent with them. Could this be what he means? She has been focusing on it, far more than she ought to, but it has gotten her nowhere. Perhaps Bran means to warn her against it, against spending her nights chasing a flight of fancy that will never amount to anything. Or perhaps it is something else entirely. It’s hard to tell with Bran nowadays.

She sits against the massive tree, her back against its white trunk, and lets her mind wander to happier times. Her father used to sit in this very spot, a lifetime ago, his hands polishing Ice as he enjoyed a few precious moments of respite from his duties. Her mother would come here then, to speak with him, to gently coax him back until they would walk back to the keep, arm in arm and a smile on their faces.

She thinks back on the night she ventured across the Wall under the guise of a direwolf, and the happiness she had felt then. It had been confusing at first, Ghost’s heightened senses overwhelming her completely, the fragmented presence of the direwolf’s mind nudging inside his skull against her own. But then everything else had been drowned by Jon and her efforts to try and recapture that feeling had proven both consuming and pointless thus far.

_Be a wolf._

Her focus changes suddenly, and her mind wanders to Ghost and what it felt like to truly _be_ him, instead of someone else trapped in a foreign body. His coarse white fur keeping her warm against the chilling winds, his red eyes and one ear, so much sharper than her own, his massive paws carving their way against the snow covered grounds. She feels a sudden awareness of her surroundings, her earing and her smelling sharper somehow, as she recalls how everything felt so much more powerful when she was a wolf.

She hears a rhythmic thumping to her side, with whispering voices carrying over the rustling leaves, and she jerks her eyes open ready to snap at whoever has seen fit to disturb her here. It takes her only a fleeting moment to realize she’s no longer in the godswood.

She’s lying on the ground, the softly falling snowflakes teasing her whiskers, and she licks them in an attempt to ease the itching. Her paws feel the cold but her body is unbothered by it, the coarse fur keeping her warm and cozy. She instantly recognizes the clearing and she twists slightly to look at the small cabin directly behind her.

She’s back, and there’s a giddiness building inside her chest at the realization, something soft and bubbly that makes its way across her body until she’s so excited she could scream. Was it really this easy? Her snout turns up, facing the endless blue sky as she playfully tries to bite at the falling snow. The movement makes her fall backwards and she yelps, startled, before she lets herself fall back against the frozen blanket and giving it a few playful rolls.

It’s been years since she’s felt like this, careless and free, and she longs to enjoy it for however long it lasts.

The thumping stops abruptly and she hears a chuckle that startles her out of her playful roll in the snow. Jon is standing a few feet away, an axe in his hand and a smile on his lips. “You’re in good spirits.”

She leaps to her feet, shaking the excess snow from her fur before she quickly makes her way to him, bounding around him and nudging his legs, in a show of undivided affection. He’s still smiling as he crouches down to run his fingers through her fur, giving her a tender pat on the head. “You’re acting like you’re a pup again.” She snaps her teeth playfully at him before she nudges him again. She’s still learning her own strength though and he topples back, landing on his arse with a bark of laughter.

She circles around him as she waits for him to get up, sniffing curiously at him as she goes. His laughter dies down eventually but he still doesn’t move as she comes back to a stop in front of him.

“So this is how it’s going to be, is it?” He shakes his head reproachfully at her. “Alright, just remember this was your doing.” There’s a mischievous glint in his smile as he starts picking up handfuls of snow and she takes two steps back, her tail waggling as she keeps her eyes on his hands.

_Surely, he wouldn’t dare…_

But surely he does, as he lifts his hand with a triumphant smile and a carefully rounded snowball and throws it up into an arch. Her red eyes follow with rapt attention as it flies across the air before it explodes against her head. She startles back and hears him laughing again as she starts to shake herself furiously, trying to get rid of the ice that stubbornly clings to her fur.

His hands are already busy making another snowball when she looks back at him, and her head tilts to the side, red eyes glinting in the sun as she ponders her options. Ladies don’t enter snowball fights and it’s been years since she’s been in one, but the notion is almost foreign to her in this moment. The more immediate concern is the distinct lack of hands, and the fact that her paws cannot compete with him.

The wind swishes in front of her and she jumps back a mere moment before another snowball lands right in front of her. He chuckles and she narrows her eyes at him, her plan already formed. Her upper body drops against the snow, her tail dancing back and forth as she tries to distract him, before she lunges forth.

It’s graceful, the way she lands in front of him with a soft thump before quickly twisting around. She thinks she would blush if she could, as she feels her tail thumping against his face before his hands start moving against it, trying to bat it away. He’s still chuckling, completely unaware of his impending fate, when she buries her paws into the snow and begins to dig.

The crunch of the snow against her nails is a crescendo of sound as she digs faster and faster, spurred on by the sound of his laughter echoing across the clearing. She takes a huff of breath, tilts her head back to look at him to see him covered in white before she turns back around to dig some more.

“Alright, alright, enough! You win.” His words are practically muffled by laughter and snow but his hands land on both sides of her tail and she stops abruptly. Her tongue is lolling to the side but she attributes it to the effort and certainly not to the way his fingers spear through her fur before he gives a gentle push to her behind.

His laughter dies down and she hears a rumbling from his chest before silence seems to settle over them. Sansa sits down primly in front of him, back straight and lone ear pointed up, and suddenly their eyes lock. There’s a softness in his gaze as he stares at her that seems to tear at her insides and she trembles.

Jon shakes his head warily before he rises to his feet, his eyes sweeping around in a warrior’s stance before stopping to look intently towards the edge of the trees. Sansa looks too, her body suddenly tense and alert. She can’t see or hear anything, though, nothing besides the wind as it rustles through the leaves and the occasional cracking sound as one of the giant trees bends and shakes under the heavy weight of snow. She looks back at Jon, cocking her head.

Jon’s eyes have a faraway look as he keeps his gaze steadily looking ahead. He seems as though he’s lost somewhere in the recesses of his mind and it takes Sansa but a few moments to realize he’s looking south.

 _Winterfell._ He’s looking towards home.

She steps forward and nudges her snout softly against his leg, trying to ease some of the tension that seems to have settled over his shoulders and waits for the inevitable ear rub, but it never comes. Instead he keeps his hands to his sides, his eyes trained forward.

“I can’t go back,” he sighs. “I can never go back.”

There’s a resignation in his tone that sparks a sudden sense of anger within Sansa, and she feels the fur at her neck bristling as she bares her teeth in rage. Because he can. He _should_ be there. He doesn’t get to look longingly back, as if something precious was taken from him. She had tried to bring him back. He should be there. He _could_ be there if he really wanted to.

_If he wanted to._

The thought is hardly new and yet too much at the same time and she takes two steps back, pulls away from him. The sudden movement seems to snap Jon out of his daze and he looks at her bared teeth in astonishment. “Ghost? What’s wrong boy?”

He takes a cautious step towards her, his hand stretched out in front of him with his palm up, trying to soothe her, but right now Sansa is too mad to care. She bares her teeth again, letting out a low snarl and he stops stunned. “Ghost. It’s me.”

She takes a few more steps back, trying to put some distance between them, trying to control this anger that seems to own her and she sees his eyes suddenly cloud with hurt. “So you’re just gonna turn on me too, is that it? Leave me as well?”

 _I’m not the one that’s left,_ she wants to scream at him.

He huffs out an annoyed breath, a hand coming out to rub over his face in a gesture she’s so familiar with that her heart aches at the sight and, for a moment, it’s as though they’re back to their old ways, arguing and bickering with a carelessness borne out of the certainty of the bond they shared.

But it’s not the same, she reminds herself. Things have changed. Their tentative trust has been broken and the bonds tying them together have changed and shattered. She fears he may never forgive her. She doesn’t know if she has forgiven him.

Her mind is screaming and suddenly Sansa is running, her powerful wolf body carrying her over snow covered grounds and into the deep woods that surround the dwelling, with only the wind rushing by her coat, the crunching of ice beneath her paws and the desperate sound of Jon calling her name.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [Pax_2735](https://pax-2735.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr - feel free to drop me prompts, questions or just come over to say hey


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